September 16, 2013

What’s missing in the current debate over economic inequality is enough serious discussion about investing in effective early childhood development from birth to age 5.

Or from 8 months and 29 days before birth to birth.

Heckman does have sensible things to say:

The cognitive skills prized by the American educational establishment and measured by achievement tests are only part of what is required for success in life. Character skills are equally important determinants of wages, education, health and many other significant aspects of flourishing lives. Self-control, openness, the ability to engage with others, to plan and to persist — these are the attributes that get people in the door and on the job, and lead to productive lives. Cognitive and character skills work together as dynamic complements; they are inseparable. Skills beget skills. More motivated children learn more. Those who are more informed usually make wiser decisions.

Interestingly, he uses "character skills" rather than the more fashionable "emotional intelligence."

Arithmetic suggests that two things that would facilitate higher parental investment per poor child are:

24 comments:

Anonymous
said...

One of the better results of the Bell Curve brouhaha was that James Heckman became intensely interested in IQ. If you search for his papers by publication year in Google Scholar, you'll notice that he didn't write a single paper that mentioned IQ before 1994 (when The Bell Curve was published), but after 1994 he's published more than 100 papers that do (he is famously prolific).

Heckman has admitted that The Bell Curve had a big influence on his thinking. I quote from this interview:

Region: In 1995, you wrote a very strong critique of The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray's book about IQ, genetics and ability, which argued that nature far outweighs nurture.

Heckman: My review wasn't as negative as those of others. I think the book was very important. It broke a taboo by showing that differences in ability existed and predicted a variety of socioeconomic outcomes. So, I thought the book was important in raising that issue, but it failed totally when it focused so much on genetic determination of ability. It had no hard evidence on genetics. The youngest person in the Herrnstein-Murray sample was 14 years of age at the start of the sample. By the time they are 14, people are pretty well formed and environments play a big role. The idea that a test score measured at age 14 was a good measure of genetic determinism is absurd.

Region: What have you found in your own research about the effects of schooling on test scores?

Heckman: Very strong effects, much stronger than what Herrnstein and Murray claim in their book. In a paper published last year with Kathleen Mullen and Karsten Hansen in the Journal of Econometrics, we found substantial effects of an extra year's schooling on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, the same test they used. The point is that the test they used is an achievement test. It embodies knowledge that people acquire through experience.

I thought the book played a very important role in raising the issue of differences in ability and their importance. It stimulated discussion if only by being a target of attack. There's an awful lot of convention in academic life. And The Bell Curve was important precisely because the topic of ability had become off-limits to "right-minded" people. It forced scholars to confront important facts about differences among people. I think that was the contribution of the book. So, actually, I'm a bigger fan of it than you might think.

Before the book was published, psychologists studied test scores but never matched them to observations on behavior.[My comment: This is nonsense. It was Heckman himself who didn't pay attention to these things before The Bell Curve, not psychologists.] These guys did; they took the test scores, and they showed that they predicted who was committing crimes and who was dropping out of school. The brilliant feature of that book was that most of the analysis in the first part of the book is for whites. They show that the AFQT is very powerfully predictive of a whole range of behaviors for whites.

They were lightning rods. Everybody attacked them. My review didn't attack them on the grounds frequently raised. I did say that they misinterpreted their own data by focusing on genetics. Ability was very powerfully predictive. It played a major role in determining outcomes. But there was nothing in the book that justified any theory of genetic determinism. Everything we've learned since then suggests that the traditional way people measure genetic effects ignores interactions, and ignores a growing body of important literature about gene-environment interactions.

Heckman is wrong about G-E interactions, and his heavy promotion of iffy decades-old intervention studies is getting comical, but he has done much to make economists appreciate IQ research.

One conundrum I haven't seen sufficiently explored in the media is the difference in unemployment rates between Hispanics & Blacks. Blacks have a higher high school graduation rate than Hispanics yet Hispanics enjoy a better employment rate. I personally think the difference is due to emotional intelligence or more accurately work ethic.

Or perhaps even simpler, the losers, the uncompetitive, the unfit for the 21st century, the semi-primitive should simply stop begetting more losers and adding to the quantum of human misery. 'course Darwin himself put it better and simpler than that, or even good old Jonathan Swift who only semi-satorically urged the poor of Dublin to eat their own children. The fact is that in this unforgiving world it simply kinder, (and beeter for all of us), to prevent the birth of losers from occurring in the first place. No loser = no disappointed wasted life. Therefore the superior economist should be thinking more in the way of cash bounties offered to the low IQ in exchange for sterilisation. And I couldn't give a fig about the Catholic church.

If all the children in the home have the same mother and the same father, the home can probably handle more children, perhaps 1-2 more children, than homes where there are step-parents, children from previously marriages, children living out of suitcases as they go back and forth every other week (or on weekends), etc.

Libs have long praised the rebellious, confrontational, angry, uppity, nasty, demented, perverse, trashy, and puerile--especially among blacks, homos, feminists, minorities--, but now they are saying kids should be raised to be stable, balanced, cooperative, and responsible.

They push rappers, Miley Cyrus, Sarah Silverman, Muhammad Ali, lady gaga, Bart Simpson, fat egotistical oprah, and etc as social ideals but also complain that kids are not as nice the kids in the Brady Bunch.

Though Steve Pinker is a dishonest character, I give him credit for admitting that the 60s generation had some naive notions about freedom and human nature, liberals are culpable for the social disaster that happened in the 70s with crime and drugs.

To be sure, Pinker is preparing a academically acceptable soft-landing for controversial ideas(usually the domain of the political right) that he hopes to claim for the Left. He hopes to do intellectually what Clinton did politically. Clinton of course took many conservative ideas and twisted them into neo-lib-ism.

One of the better results of the Bell Curve brouhaha was that James Heckman became intensely interested in IQ. . . . Heckman is wrong about G-E interactions, and his heavy promotion of iffy decades-old intervention studies is getting comical, but he has done much to make economists appreciate IQ research.

All true. An unfortunate aspect of Heckman's personality is his intense need for affirmation from the economics profession at large and the tireless, hyper-aggressive self-promotion it leads to. He shares these particular quirks with pretty much the whole Chicago department. Fortunate aspects include his absolute brilliance, industriousness, and love of controversy. Also Chicago characteristics.

I attended the famous panel discussion of _The Bell Curve_ at the 1996 American Economics Association annual meeting --- a panel Murray and Hernstein were not invited to and upon which not one proponent of their work sat. Heckman was the least critical member of the panel. The panel's discussion featured, for example, explicit comparisons between Murray & Hernstein and the Nazis (and Stalin, too). Arthur Goldberger, another famous econometrician, made a particularly revolting spectacle of himself.

Heckman's consternation at being assigned the role of token racist was palpable. I think much of his subsequent goofiness can be explained by his desire not to repeat in that role. Shockley and Watson demonstrate that being a brilliant Nobel Laureate who is right on the facts do not protect against this charge.

Heckman, at that panel and elsewhere, made wild, negative claims about _The Bell Curve_, characterizing it as pseudo-scholarship and so on. It's just that the other panelists were even worse. He is walking back his earlier claims in the linked interview.

Note well that Heckman's interest in IQ, personality, and early childhood development (though longstanding) has "broken out" into the public consciousness only after it has been suitably channeled and domesticated. He is suggesting huge new social programs designed to improve black folks. He talks as little as possible about IQ and genetics, and, when he does it is by way of distancing himself from dangerous ideas. He emphasizes malleability.

To re-quote one of Anonymous's quotes:They were lightning rods. Everybody attacked them. My review didn't attack them on the grounds frequently raised. I did say that they misinterpreted their own data by focusing on genetics.

This is basically a lie. Everyone attacked them specifically for their "genetic determinism." That was the standard attack both in the scholarly literature and in the popular literature. Heckman's attacks were less unhinged and more technical, but he was saying the same things the other beautiful people were.

But, ultimately what anonymous says is true. Heckman has "made space" in the econ profession to talk a little bit, and carefully, about IQ and about genes. He "shows" that you can be a smart, non-racist, real economist who thinks psychometric measures are important.

Heckman is using a straw man argument - the Bell Curve never said that outcomes are 100% genetically determined. But Heckman seems to be advocating for the idea that they are 0% determined, which is equally if not more ridiculous. Anyone who has thought sensibly about this for the last 3,000 years (and plenty have) has reached the obvious conclusion that man is combination of nature and nurture. Those who say otherwise are advocating a pseudo-religion, not science. Of course in religion there is no room for heretics or shades of gray.

Even if we accept Heckman's premise as true, how do you change the environment in a way that is compatible with a free society? We have tried all sorts of preschools and day care, etc. and none of those have had any lasting effect (and certainly not in proportion to their high cost). In the old days, we would take children from dysfunctional homes and put them in orphanages but those institutions were even worse in many cases and in any event are contrary to modern thinking.

There are all these studies that show that by age 5, little Winston in the suburbs has heard 5 million more words spoken by his parents than Tyquan hears from his mama in the ghetto (because we all know that American blacks suffer from a lack of verbal fluency) and that this accounts for why Winston is doing better in school. And to be honest, Tyquan would probably do a little better in school if he was raised in Winston's household. But how do you do that as a practical matter?

What’s missing in the current debate over economic inequality is enough serious discussion about the effects of importing 11 + million uneducated, poverty stricken illegal aliens into America, who lack technical skills, health insurance and retirement savings, and earn next to nothing.

One conundrum I haven't seen sufficiently explored in the media is the difference in unemployment rates between Hispanics & Blacks. Blacks have a higher high school graduation rate than Hispanics yet Hispanics enjoy a better employment rate. I personally think the difference is due to emotional intelligence or more accurately work ethic.Probably not, Mexicans work for lower wages. In California believe it or not in some counties like Orange County blacks have a lower unemployment rate than Hispanics since Orange County has a lot of illegal immigrants that can't do most jobs and Blacks tend to be more middle to upper middle class. Blacks in Orange County have less kids out of wedlock than Mexicans. Also, blacks in Orange County own houses and have higher income and lower poverty rates than Mexicans in the OC.

That's the gov'ts job, don'cha know.Actually, I'm abandon the Republican approach with the hands off the government since whites need some support by the government to get jobs and have some welfare. The Democrats spend most welfare and job help on minorities. The best thing the government can do is fine companies for hiring illegal immigrants and stop massive Stem H1b's from coming in.

"Character skills" or "emotional intelligence" is real, and very important. Unfortunately for our liberal overlords, the way people develop these traits is by having reasonably high quality parents (of opposite sexes, it must be added). And for liberals that whole concept is like garlic to a vampire.

Remember, when x million immigrants are amnestied, H1B1'erd are increased, wages decline, and taxes soar, any economic difficulty you experience is not the fault of social policy. It's your own fault for lacking emotional IQ and a positive attitude. Blame yourself. Don't blame your wise rulers. Don't get involved in politics. Just lie there and watch the ball game.

What’s missing in the current debate over economic inequality is enough serious discussion about investing in effective early childhood development from birth to age 5.

I respond:

What’s missing in the current debate over economic inequality is enough serious discussion about the wisdom of importing more chronically poor and low IQ people.

Obama, who wants to throw the borders wide open, is worried about income and wealth inequality.

Really, mass non-white immigration is the absolute no-doubt-about-it keystone to the growing wealth and income gap, for two dynamically related reasons: First is the obvious factor, you're importing more poverty. Second, the effect of open borders is driving down wages and salaries, which is, as V-Dare points out, a 300-450 gigabuck a year wealth transfer from labor to capital, thereby making the rich richer.

He's right. There is no Nobel prize in economics. There were only five prizes provided for in Nobel's bequest. There are only five prizes that Alfred Nobel sought to endow - Physics, Chemistry, Medicine/Physiology, Literature, and Peace. Those were the areas in which Alfred Nobel wanted to stimulate progress and reward accomplishment. Economics was NOT one of them.

The "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics" was created in 1968 by a group of scandinavian economists in order to enhance the prestige of their own field by glomming on to a prestigious award. I could create my own medal, and call it the "Victoria Cross", and award it to people, but it would not mean that they were recipients of an actual Victoria Cross.

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